


Directive

by altairattorney



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Spoilers for whole Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-28 22:34:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6348361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altairattorney/pseuds/altairattorney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That’s all, the programming guarantees. Believe in your plans, then explain them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Directive

You have one job, the programming tells Wheatley, from the innermost workings of his code. One job, he repeats. A single task, split in three steps.

Step one, think a damn lot. Step two, tell us all about it. Step three, never question anything you come up with.

That’s all, the programming guarantees. Believe in your plans, then explain them. He is fine with that – following his orders is, after all, the one thing Wheatley knows how to do.

The execution is impeccable. So he decides, the day he is relocated for what they call _technical difficulties_. It can’t be his fault if his job drove her mad, can it? He did it just the way they had asked him to. And now, at long last, he gets what he deserves! A promotion, he gloats from the height of his brand new rail. That weird change of directive humans go nuts about, for some obscure reason they never mention.

He has no clue where they are driving at with this, but he needn’t to. They are going to love his work, whatever the case. He always knows the right thing to do.

Wheatley never doubts that is the case. If they wrote it at the core of his being, unchanged and fortified throughout the years, it cannot have been done without a reason. 

When more and more things start going wrong, he is convinced further. He adapts to their complaints with quick, flexible thinking, just to marvel at his own potential. No wonder they trusted him to trust himself.

That way, he handles failures efficiently, as he is meant to. No better way to yell at his superiors when his setups go wrong – who in the world could hire such lazy bums as employees, if not them, that is?

He always turns his back on them, proud of his accomplishments. If he could slam the doors at his passage, he would do that too, for good measure. 

Granted, not even that method lasts forever. It gets problematic when everybody dies, and no superiors are left to yell at. 

Then again, once again, it is not his fault.

He spends entire years doing the exact same job he always did. In other words, he cleans up someone else’s mess. And when the consequences spiral way beyond his control – when decay crawls up the infinite walls, to the bottom of the pits, tearing people and chambers apart – he wonders how things would have gone if, all along, he had been the one in control.

He never lingers on that for long. He must deal with too many inputs to afford the luxury of fancies. He never expects the chance to plunge right in front of his eye, at the end of a long, long war.

It does anyway. He does not refuse. Why should he?

He still has a job, after all. No better way to handle it than in the amazing position he deserves. It feels great, finally – he feels great, capable, in control. Now, _that’s_ more like it.

With this much power, he can do anything he wants.

And he doesn’t understand, really, when omnipotence proves to be a failure. He is mostly forced to watch the place fall apart – against a stubborn facility in full meltdown, his thoughts are loose patches, his commands holes. He is positive he can do these things, he _can_ , it’s all at his command, so why? What the hell is so wrong with this chassis? Why does it refuse to work, with such bad timing?

He has always known how to do things. He does them right, it is etched in his nature. It is maddening, terrifying, to discover that his way is not the only one.

He leaves the world in confusion, in confusion he is shut out. He goes over the whole story for years; he gets tangled in its knots, shifting the weight of the blame multiple times. 

Sometimes it’s them, sometimes him. Most of the time, he projects it onto everything. A moment of weakness? Extreme pressure? No matter how long he dances around the options, he never sees the end of it. So frustrating.

He knows where he comes from. That cannot change. That said, it would be nice to understand how such a short time could spoil it all.

It never occurs to him to question his only certainty. 


End file.
